HyperReal
4 StashesA Stashbox by NotRobbie
Charles Sheeler is a bit of an outlier. He is commonly seen as a proto-photorealist, employing many of the same techniques to create photorealistic canvases that the photorealists would later use, but he also created a fair amount of more abstract work that can be lumped in with the Precisionists, a group of American painters working in the 30s and 40s.
This painting, Yankee Clipper, is part of a series on 'power' commissioned by Fortune magazine. With these works you can see hints of abstraction, or an unearthly cleanliness; the subjects of Sheeler's paintings are idealized and lack the flaws and imperfections that all material objects must have.
Maybe I'll delve deeper into another of his paintings another time.
Comments
What's the difference between a photorealist, proto-photorealist? Google searches don't turn up a whole ton for proto-photorealism.
Thought this was pretty interesting while investigating Precisionism:
Also -- I'm learning some fun facts about paintings I would not have seen otherwise, thanks for sharing! I made this a Featured Stashbox.
I called him a proto-photorealist b/c he many of his paintings on photographs (he was also a very accomplished photographer). That's not remarkable in and of itself, but before this guy most painters that used photographs used them as aids and didn't directly mimic the photo. They still kinda painted from their mind. As far I remember, the photorealists didn't really start up till the 60s, and even then many people were appalled that they were making what seemed like facsimiles of photographs. This was a big deal coming out of the 50s, when abstract art reigned supreme and pop art was beginning to take control.
The Precisionists have lots of really cool work. Look up "My Egypt" by Charles Demuth -- it's one of my personal favs.
And thx for making this featured! And and how do I format stuff in the comments like the block quote from wiki in your comment?
"My Egypt" is fantastic, thanks for sharing. I'm going to have to look into this some more!
It's github flavored markdown (a bit like reddit's if you're familiar). Since you asked, I just added an editor toolbar to the comment
<textarea>. :)Note: there isn't a button for everything you can mark up. It should be able to do anything in this link. Quotes in particular are denoted by a
>before the text.Aw cool! Thx again!